Interstate Solution with NBU 11, lets get rid of it?

[eric_barlier]

Hi guys,

We are in reviewing phases of our interstate solution. It states that interestate offices will have a local library and a local NBU server.

We will be running new fas2040 controllers interstate and we have got snapmirror, snapvault and snapdrive licenses, plus NFS and god knows

what.

1. Surely there is a way of using either VSM or SV or even NFS to get rid of the local tape solution to send it across to HQ and from HQ send it off

to tape? I have been told its not possible due to NBU needs for cataloging. Im dont know what that is and how it affect all of this, hence I am asking

for help.

2. I have in the past been at customers that backed up .snapshots to tape. What does it take to make that happen? For me it sounds like a very clever

   way of doing tape backups. I have not seen it since though..

oh. one final thing, we have a 10mb "pipe", more like a straw really, to do SV and SM so that could be why they have gone local with tape? Im sure

sure its a factor but once the baselines are done it should not be an issue. other than if you have to restore 1TB of course..

Any information about how we can mirror/vault into HQ and get rid of NBU would be appreciated.

Cheers,

Eric

[radek_kubka]

Hi Eric,

Two things:

1) To me getting rid of local tape backups makes perfect sense - at the end of the day, with introducing NetApp, snapshots become the first line of defense & in most typical  cases they are used for recovery purposes. If things go very messy (e.g. an actual disaster) then a full copy of data sits (hopefully) in HQ thanks to SM or SV (or both)

2) NBU & backup to tape - the most typical approach is to use NDMP to tape, which is supported by NBU (& many other backup software vendors as well). You are looking at streaming NetApp snapshots to tape, so if they are created by SnapManager products, then you don't need NBU application agents any more (which do very similar thing - put an app in hot-backup, consistent mode). To do this NBU NDMP option is required & ideally an FC tape library, directly connected to the filer ports (you'd need dedicated FC intiator ports though on the filer!). NBU also supports streaming NDMP backups via NBU media server, so in theory it can by just any tape library which is accessible from NBU (e.g. SCSI-connected).

Regards,
Radek

[eric_barlier]

Thanks Radek.

I have since this post found out that the guy that designs this does not consider SV as a backup product as per HIS definition.

So its not technical anymore.. 😉

Eric

[jmerrill]

Eric,

Just wanted to see why SnapVault isn't perceived as a backup solution?  I'm more than interested to hear some of the points the designer may have.

Thanks!

Jeremy

[radek_kubka]

the guy that designs this does not consider SV as a backup product as per HIS definition.

well, that's a bit unfair to SV!

First of all, ANY snapshot can be considered as a form of backup - this is a point-in-time copy which can be used for recovery if needed.

SV adds to that a filer-level and/or site-level resiliency by transferring snapshots from source to target.

And the concept of D2D backup with "incrementals for ever" is neither new, nor unique: see IBM TSM, CommVault, PureDisk (which oddly enough is now a part of NBU) & many more!

Regards,
Radek

[eric_barlier]

I am meeting up with him today, shortly. Im going to probe him about this, just for learning shall we say 😉

I ll let you know what the outcome is.

Eric